Over five years have passed since I put this site online, in response to a request from a doctor who was concerned by the increasing numbers of patients who were living with emotional and verbal abuse.

In the meantime I have continued to research and write on other areas of health, particularly the emerging science of epigenetics.

This research has been revealing a previously little-understood aspect of personality disorders i.e. the effect of epigenetics on brain chemicals.

For example, dopamine is the empathy brain chemical. When dopamine is impaired there is little or no empathy – little or no understanding of the effect of damaging words or actions on others.

Another effect of impaired brain chemicals is “Ever hearing yet never understanding, ever seeing yet never perceiving.” This is why logic and discussion are powerless to counter verbal abuse.

There is a lot more I could write to make the connection between epigenetics and personality disorders – and I will. In the meantime I’ve written about epigenetics on my Food For Thought site.

Read it bearing in mind that the resulting impairment of brain chemicals is a crucial factor in personality disorders and abuse. It’s not the only factor – but it is one that needs to be more widely understood.

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“It is through these interviews, that we have received our greatest education about power and control in relationships. The women’s accounts have also taught us that abusive men present their own stories with tremendous denial, minimisation, and distortion of the history of their behaviours and that it is therefore otherwise impossible for us to get an accurate picture of what is going on in an abusive relationship without listening carefully to the abused woman.” (Lunday Bancroft)

"The Lord is close to the broken-hearted; He saves those who are crushed in spirit." (Psalm 34:18)